考研阅读精选：假日精神无从感激

考研网

Holiday spirit
Thanks for nothing
假日精神无从感激

  NO HOLIDAY is safe from the scolds. Independence Day? A celebration of  the American exceptionalism behind our bogus claims to legitimacy as a  "benevolent" neo-imperialist global hegemony. Christmas? A sickening  display of consumerism run amok and a case study in Christian mythology  crowding out pagan good cheer. (Take your pick.) Memorial Day? An  exercise in the elevation of those who kill and die for the state  without asking too many questions about it. Veterans Day?  Ditto.Labor Day is all right, I guess, if you're red.Columbus Day? Ask  a Seminole. Now here we are on the cusp of Thanksgiving. Other than  lamenting the white man's plundering, murdering, colonizing ways (ask an  Iroquois) what else is there to say to take the fun out of the national  day of gluttony here in the home of the bravely obese? Plenty!
  Before you stuff yourself to the gills with the flesh of innocent birds  fattened in disgustingly inhumane conditions, please read this discourse  on "Thanksgiving as 'System Justification'", by Jon Hanson, the Alfred  Smart Professor of Law at Harvard. In a nutshell, "system justification"  is the socio-psychological process by which turkeys come to welcome  their impending slaughter. Every society is rife with injustice. System  justification is how we convince ourselves it's all for the best.
"Manifestations  of the system-justification motive pervade many of our cognitions,  ideologies, and institutions", Mr. Hanson says. For example, Harvard  University might be said to make extremely privileged people comfortable  in their mostly unearned wealth and prestige by helping them develop a  super-classy shared vocabulary for expressing their mildly guilty  feelings about it. Mr Hanson, demonstrating how this is done, worries  that Thanksgiving, as Americans celebrate it, is but one more prop  shoring up the corrupt current dispensation.
No doubt, expressing  gratitude is generally a healthy and appropriate practice. Indeed, my  sense is that Americans too rarely acknowledge the debt they owe to  other people and other influences. There ought to be more thanks giving.
  Nonetheless, the norm of Thanksgiving seems to be to encourage a  particular kind of gratitude — a generic thankfulness for the status  quo. Indeed, when one looks at what many describe as the true meaning of  the holiday, the message is generally one of announcing that current  arrangements — good and bad — are precisely as they should be.
  Mr. Hanson goes on to detect in Thanksgiving speeches from George  Washington to George W. Bush the message that America's prosperity is a  manifestation of divine providence, evidence that God reserves a special  place in His infinite heart for us Americans. "From such a  perspective", Mr. Hanson observes, "giving thanks begins to look like a  means of assuring ourselves that our current situation was ordained by  some higher, legitimating force. To doubt the legitimacy of existing  arrangements is to be ungrateful."
In response to a blog post  suggesting that true spirit of Thanksgiving means we should be "thankful  no matter what our situation in life", Mr. Hanson asks "should we also  be thankful for unfairness or injustice? And if we are to be grateful  for our sorrows, should we then be indifferent toward their earthly  causes?" I should say not. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into  indifference toward politicians. Not to say that one must be deranged by  constant outrage over the world's injustices and their causes. Just  don't breathe too easy. Don't relax too much. If you think it's only  healthy to set aside politics now and then and bask wholeheartedly in  the warm love of family, you're probably part of the problem.
Mr. Hanson concludes:
  If your inclination on Thanksgiving is to give thanks, I do not mean to  discourage you. My only suggestion is that you give thanks, not for the  status quo, but for all of the ways in which your (our) own advantages  and privileges are the consequence of situation, and not simply your  individual (our national) disposition. Further, I’d encourage you to  give thanks to all those who have gone before you who have doubted the  status quo and who have identified injustice and impatiently fought  against it.
Happy Thanksgiving!
But not too happy. Have a totally thrilling Buy Nothing Day, though!And may your occupation of Christmas be bright.